More Cops Reject Controversial Arizona Immigration Law, SB 1070

From local Arizona cops to top police chiefs, with expertise in community policing, law enforcement is taking a firm stand against Arizona’s controversial new immigration law, SB 1070.

Over the weekend, Chief Art Acevedo of Austin, TX wrote an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman warning that Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislators who signed the law “declared open season for criminals to target immigrants” and “killed community policing in the state.” Chief Acevedo says Arizona’s own history with crime shows why the new law is dangerous:

“During his tenure as chief of police in Mesa, George Gascon, now the chief in San Francisco, focused the efforts of his police officers on the reduction of crime through the COMPSTAT process — the use of historical and real-time crime data to deploy resources and fight crime — and resisted calls to have his officers engage in immigration enforcement. On the other end of the spectrum, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ordered his deputies to aggressively conduct immigration enforcement operations. Arpaio publicly chided Gascon for refusing to adopt his approach. Results of these divergent approaches speak for themselves: During the same three-year period, Mesa residents experienced a 30 percent reduction in crime and Maricopa County residents were subjected to a marked increase in crime, especially violent crime.”